[XSL-LIST Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Leventhal's challenge misses the point
At 14:14 +0100 28/5/99, Miles Sabin wrote:
In fact, I think we're getting quite close to what I think is the chief defect of XSL. Despite what's said about it, it doesn't really separate data-model from presentation all that well Agreed XML/XSL is a model-view type architecture. MV is good at breaking the dependency of data-models on presentation issues. Unfortunately it's very poor at separating presentation issues from the data model. I don't think this is the issue. The big problem I see is that one target audience (graphic designers) and possibly another ('general' public) don't think in the abstract symbolic terms required by either traditional procedural langauges OR declarative. There is a wide range of literature describing how different people perceive things differently. I'm primarily kinaesthetic and secondarily visual - I have a lot of trouble with abstract structures and have to work hard to get the feel of something described in symbolic terms. This reminds me of a discussion I got involved in with the UML language. Rational were defining a standard for visual communication but refused to get any visual communication experts involved. They based the standard on an amalgamation of visual languages designed primarily by computer scientists and engineers over the past decade or so. I'm not advocating that we abandon textual languages altogether but that our textual languages should be designed with wider appeal. Where languages are concerned with formatted layout then I believe the focus of the language should be on the layout, not on the source data. Where we are manipulating data, *then* is the right time to focus on the data descriptions. Andy Dent BSc MACS AACM, Software Designer, A.D. Software, Western Australia OOFILE - Database, Reports, Graphs, GUI for c++ on Mac, Unix & Windows PP2MFC - PowerPlant->MFC portability http://www.oofile.com.au/ XSL-List info and archive: http://www.mulberrytech.com/xsl/xsl-list
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|